a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Salsa Quitza

I’ve been intrigued by Lora Body’s Salsa Quitza recipe for a long while…I’ve nominated it at least five or six times, but seems I was the only one so interested!  With refried beans in the crust and layers of cream cheese and salsa in the filling, I’ve never heard of this bizarre Southwestern quiche-pizza hybrid thing.  Must be a Lora Brody original.  I made it for Sunday’s game (which did not at all end the way I hoped it would, by the way), and my husband asked what to expect…I told him the only thing I was sure of was that it would be weird.

The quitza crust is a bread dough that can apparently also be made into a loaf, if you don’t want to go full-quitza on it.  The dough instructions call for a bread machine, but I don’t have one so I made it in my stand mixer and let it rise on the counter.  I combined the ingredients in the “regular” way, with yeast and liquids first (including the not-so-regular addition of refried beans…I used canned pinto), followed by the dry stuff.  The dough was soft, but not sticky, and made a nice ball after about eight minutes of knead-time.  I let it rise twice, about 45 minutes to an hour each time, before shaping it in the pan.

I made half a recipe and baked it in an 8″ regular cake pan.  For the filling, I followed Cher’s suggestion to decrease the salsa by about half (proportionally, of course, for my half recipe), and I also chose to reduce the cream cheese layer by a couple of tablespoons and add on a smear of refried beans, since I had extra from the dough.  I topped it with a mix of cheddar and mozzarella.

OK, yeah, it was kind of weird, but good-weird.  The dough was soft and rose high, like a deep dish.  The filling was really creamy from the cream cheese (and I’m glad I reduced the cream cheese and salsa or it would have been sloppy and too much).  And it went well with beer.  If I make it again, I think I’ll sprinkle some olives on top.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (there’s also a video here of the episode). Finally, don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Eastern European Rye

Before making Lauren Groveman’s Eastern European Rye, I began to daydream about a turkey reuben on homemade bread.  Liz Lemon is not the only one with very specific food fantasies.  I was out of rye flour, though, so I bought a bag of local (okay, not NYC, but NY state) farmer-ground organic rye flour from the Greenmarket and got to mixing.  I saw a tip to mix the dough in a stand mixer for 3 minutes, turn it off and let the dough rest for 10 minutes, then back on again for about 12 more minutes of kneading.  I did this mixing method, and the dough rose nicely, and apart from my three slash marks, it didn’t split open in the oven.  The final dough shaping and rising instructions are a little wacky when you read them in the book, but in this video, Groveman demonstrates those same steps on her pumpernickel loaf recipe.  They are still wacky, but are at least understandable after seeing them on video.

The bread that I wound up with was not the Levy’s-like sandwich loaf I was expecting, but a rustic loaf with more of a true whole grain bread feel and a craggily crust.  I couldn’t really get nice sandwich-sized slices from it, so no homemade turkey reuben for me this time (since I have a one-track mind, I did go to Mile End yesterday and get one!), but the bread does have great rye and caraway flavor and it’s nice with salty butter or a bit of good cheddar.  I think it’ll make a good tomato soup dunker, too.

I assumed that the whole grain rye I used was the culprit for the denser loaf that I got…after reading Alisa’s post this morning, if I make this again I’ll either just reduce the amount of rye I use or sub a bit of it with some extra white flour and see what I get .

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Finally, don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Mixed-Starter Bread & Walnut Bread

Two things you need to have before making Steve Sullivan’s Mixed-Starter Bread are a piece of leftover bread dough and plenty of time.  The “old dough” can be just a little hunk of raw dough saved from last night’s pizza party.  As for time, we’re talking about a whole weekend.  That’s the time needed to feed that old dough and turn it into a big batch of airy new dough.

Once you’ve successfully done your time feeding the starter and kneading and rising your dough, you can make a variety of shapes out of it…like a nice baguette, an amazing couronne, or cute wheat stalk.  You can even knead in a heap of walnuts and make a big Walnut Bread.  Not wanting to fully stock my freezer with bread loaves, I made a half-recipe of the dough and divided into a somewhat imperfectly snipped wheat stalk (pain d’epi) and a walnut boule.

In the book, the walnut boule is made with an entire batch of the finished mixed-starter dough, so mine is just a baby boule and it baked through much faster than a big guy would have.  As a result of reduced oven time, it didn’t brown as much as I would have liked, so I cheated by painting on a little olive oil before its last five minutes of baking.  I still wish I’d gotten a both breads a bit darker.

Due to the lack of afternoon light in my house this time of year, I didn’t get a good shot of the cut breads.  Even though you feel like you’ve done a lot of waiting while making this dough, it actually doesn’t hang around long enough to develop a sourdough flavor.  You get soft white bread with air holes inside and a real crust outside.  The walnut version is excellent with cheese, and I’ll take salty butter on the epi, please.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (the mixed-starter bread is also here and the walnut bread is here). There’s also a video of the BWJ episode showing how to make and shape the mixed-starter bread. Finally, don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Leaf-Shaped Fougasse

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends!  

In a kitchen without A/C, mid-summer bread baking is not really my idea of a good time, but the oven doesn’t need to be on too long for Craig Kominiak’s Leaf-Shaped Fougasse.  From what I gather, French fougasse is similar to Italian focaccia, and the teardrop leaf shape is traditional in Provence.  I should research the technical differences between the two breads, because I’m sure there are some, but for this purpose, we made the same easy dough recipe that we used for the focaccia last year (overnight rise and all that stuff).  I thought that getting the dough into the teardrop shape would be diffucult, but it wasn’t at all and I followed Cher’s suggestion to easily cut the pattern in the dough by snipping it with kitchen shears.  Also, I did my cutting directly on my sheet pan (which I sprinkled with cornmeal but did not line with parchment), and that saved me from having to delicately move around and transfer the shaped bread.

I find soft, bubbly, salty, oily bread like this to be addictive, and the hole pattern in the fougasse makes for little sections that are way too easy to rip off and snack on.  After R & I demolished the left side, I quickly wrapped up the right side for the freezer, just to stop ourselves from eating the whole thing in one go.  The word “fougasse” makes me think of the band Fugazi, but I guess that’s for another blog.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (a modified version of the dough recipe itself is also here and there’s a video here that includes Kominiak shaping, cutting and baking the fougasse).  Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Country Bread

I’m just back from a week-long course at Penn State studying the science and federal regulation of large-scale ice cream manufacture…”from cow to cone,” as the main professor said.  OMG–so fun, but also really hard (especially since I hadn’t studied chemistry or physics since high school and didn’t know squat going in about the mechanics of freezers or homogenizers).  Now that I geeked-out on ice cream for a week, it only makes sense that I’m back here with Joe Ortiz’s Country Bread (huh?). 

This made one monster loaf!  The dough polished off what was left of both my yeast and my bread flour.  I was expecting the crumb to have larger air holes, but now that I think about it, given the whole wheat and rye flour in the dough, it makes sense that it had a denser structure.  I made a good breakfast with it this morning, and it’ll be a great soup-dunker, too.

For the bread recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.   Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Pumpernickel Loaves

I really thought about skipping Lauren Groveman’s Pumpernickel Loaves.  I was annoyed at the thought of having to make prune butter first.  I didn’t have any caraways seeds.  And then there was some crazy stuff about S-hooks and slings.  I sucked it up and went to the store, made the prune butter (using the lekvar recipe that’s in the book) and thought about a way to form the bread that didn’t involve a sling.

I made half a recipe for one big loaf.  Since I had a smaller batch, I mixed it in my KitchenAid.  I found that I didn’t need quite the full amount of flour to get a nice dough.  This pumpernickel gets its color (and a lot of flavor) from dark things like chocolate, espresso powder, molasses and, of course, that prune butter.  Who knew that stuff was in there?  After giving the dough two rests in a bowl, I shaped it and put it in a 9.5″x4.5″ loaf pan for its final rise (I sprayed and dusted the pan with cornmeal first).

I actually was expecting it to look darker than it turned out to be…I’ve had store-bought pumps that were almost black.  The flavor from the caraway seeds is lovely and the crust is great.

There’s an accompanying recipe for Reuben sandwiches in the book, and I made those for dinner the other night.  Yesterday I just had a plain turkey and cheese for lunch.  Both were totes yum, and my husband was extremely excited about having homemade pumpernickel.  I have this problem with slicing whole sandwich loaves, though.  I can never get a straight slice, so my sandwiches are always lopsided  (I tried to disguise that in this picture)!

For the bread recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.  It’s also here, and there’s even a video of Lauren and Julia making pumpernickel together.  Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Savory Brioche Pockets

When work gets super busy, it’s nice to have a dinner you can essentially pull out of the freezer, like Nancy Silverton’s Savory Brioche Pockets stuffed with asparagus, potatoes and cheese (or whatever you fancy, really).  The last time I made her base brioche dough, I assembled a bunch of these little gourmet hot pockets and froze them, unbaked.  Waiting for me until I need them, like everything should, right?  Asparagus is in full swing at the farmers’ markets here, and this makes a great light springtime dinner with a salad and glass of wine.  I can also see these being a good vehicle for those random leftover veggie bits and pieces that are usually kicking around my fridge.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Carie’s Loaves and Stitches. There’s also a video of Nancy and Julia making the pockets together.  Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Rustic Potato Loaves

I don’t make bread super-often. Only sometimes.   I’m usually proud of myself just for having made the effort to stir together yeast and water.  But when I opened the oven yesterday and pulled out Leslie Mackie’s Rustic Potato Loaf, I felt like a pretty legit bread baker.  Look at that crust…it is awesome. I was in love with this bread before I even cut it open.

You can’t see any trace of them, but the bread has mashed boiled potatoes in it.  I guess they help make the bread really soft inside and give it a slightly earthy flavor.  I wasn’t sure if I should peel the potatoes or not…in the end I did peel them, but also tossed the peel scraps into the cooking pot just to infuse some extra flavor into the water (which is also used in the dough).  The dough looked like a big blob of uncooked gnocchi but it was a quick riser, with two proofs of just 20-30 minutes.  So, for a “rustic” bread, it was pretty quick from start to finish.

I’m making cream of celery soup tonight and toasting off a couple of slices of this bread, and I just can’t wait!  For the bread recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Dawn’s Simply Sweet.  Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!